Every year, doctors come across hundreds of cases wherein spurious gulal causes health problems involving the eyes, skin and respiratory system - toxicity and allergy being the most common of them. According to Dr K.K. Aggarwal, vice-president of the project 'Deepankar' of the Heart Care Foundation of India (HCFI), a large number people suffer what is termed 'allergic dermatitis' in which the skin breaks out into rashes that are both dry and of the weeping variety due to the rubbing of spurious gulal.